Main menu

Post navigation

I am delighted to announce that Bunch of Grapes, a wonderful independent bookstore on Martha’s Vineyard, is hosting a talk/booksigning this Friday, June 30, 2017, from 7:00 to 8:30 pm, for my memoir, One More Warbler, A Life with Birds, published by the University of Texas Press in May.

My good friends at Travis Audubon and the University of Texas Press are co-sponsoring a book launch for my recently published memoirs, One More Warbler, a Life with Birds, at 6:30 p.m. on May 31 at the Thompson Conference Center in Austin. Details about the event and how to purchase tickets are below, and also on the Travis Audubon website, www.travisaudubon.org.

I am very much looking forward to being interviewed by my good friend, Stephen Harrigan. I hope you will join us!

Victor Emanuel

May 31st, at 6:30 PM, Travis Audubon is sponsoring an exclusive book launch for Victor Emanuel’s, One More Warbler, in partnership with the University of Texas Press. Victor, the founder of the largest avian ecotourism company on earth, will be interviewed by New York Times bestselling author, Stephen Harrigan. The discussion will be followed by a book signing and reception with no–host bar.

Victor’s memoirs share his journey from inspired youth to world’s top birder including his biggest adventures, rarest finds, and the people who mentored and encouraged his birding passion along the way. The venue has a limited capacity and tickets may not be available the day of the event. To purchase a ticket for $30, which includes admission for two and a copy of One More Warbler, go to www.travisaudubon.org

Please note: Books signed at the event must be purchased through an event ticket. Outside copies will not be permitted inside the venue. To purchase additional books, please purchase separate event tickets.

One of the many special aspects about participating in the same Christmas Bird Count year after year are the memories. Since I have been on 55 previous Freeport counts, the memories have built up. Every time I return, those memories come flooding back—memories of unusual bird sightings and of friends who birded with me. This year’s count provided even more great memories.

For over 15 years, the area I cover in the morning is the Justin Hurst Wildlife Management Area, which is just east of the small town of Jones Creek. It contains some woodland, but is mostly grassland and marsh. Cullen Hanks, Barry Lyon, and I greeted the dawn at the end of the central road, observing a great variety of waterfowl, egrets, herons, ibis, gulls, and terns. Traveling back inland, we enjoyed wonderful looks at several species of sparrows including a number of Le Conte’s, my favorite sparrow. We also saw some large flocks of Snow Geese and several White-tailed Hawks.

At around 9 am we reached a small area of dense brush where we have seen a number of rare birds on past counts. Cullen’s Dad, Steve, had joined us. He and Cullen walked across the road while Barry and I entered the brushy area on a small trail. Years ago I had seen a Yellow-breasted Chat in this area. This large “warbler” usually winters further south. I was remembering that sighting when Barry said, “I hear a Yellow-breasted Chat!” While we were trying to get looks at the chat, Barry spotted a Prairie Warbler, a species that breeds in small numbers in very short pine stands. This species is seldom seen in Texas away from its breeding grounds. I had seen one on the count fifteen years ago. It has been recorded on only a few Freeport counts. We called Cullen and Steve to come see the Prairie Warbler. Cullen looked at the warbler and then looked at some of the taller trees. He said, “I see a Myiarchus.” We looked in that direction and saw two long-tailed flycatchers sitting side by side. At first we thought they might be Ash-throated Flycatchers since that species has been seen on a number of the Freeport counts, but these birds were bright yellow below their gray breasts. We soon realized they were Brown-crested Flycatchers, a South Texas species that had been seen only once before on the Freeport count. We continued around the corner of the brushy area and spotted two Fox Sparrows, a large bright rufous and white sparrow that is missed on a number of Freeport counts. Completing the walk around this area, we arrived back at our cars. Just then I saw an adult Bald Eagle, a species that we seldom used to see on the count, but that is now more numerous. A few minutes later Cullen said, “I see a Painted Bunting!” We all got on the bird. It was a first year male with bright yellow below and chartreuse above. In about an hour we had seen five species that would probably be seen by no one else on the count. Cullen had obtained good photos of all of them.

Prairie Warbler, Freeport CBC 2015. Photo by Cullen Hanks.

Brown-crested Flycatcher, Freeport CBC 2015. Photo by Cullen Hanks.

Since we had done so well in this brushy area, I suggested we drive back south to another brushy area. We walked into that area. Cullen and Steve were on one side of a big bush when I walked around it. They yelled, “anis!” Evidently I had flushed four Groove-billed Anis from that bush, and they had flown toward Cullen and Steve. We all obtained good looks. This species is seen on less than a third of the Freeport counts.

Groove-billed Ani, Freeport CBC 2015. Photo by Cullen Hanks.

We met for lunch with the teams that cover nearby areas. Unfortunately, none of them had seen any unusual birds. After lunch we birded the town of Jones Creek. The day before we had asked a number of homeowners for permission to bird their properties. All gave us permission. They were quite friendly and had read about the count in the local newspaper. In one yard we saw a Pine Siskin, a bird that has often been missed on recent counts. In another area we saw a Black-throated Green Warbler. Then further down a road, Cullen and Barry found a Magnolia Warbler, a species that has been seen on very few Freeport counts.

It had been an amazing day with one unusual bird sighting after another. We had seen over 100 species of birds in our area including eleven species of warblers. Ten of the birds we had seen were seen by no other parties.

We ended the day near where we had begun. There we spotted a Short-eared Owl flying over the grassland and marsh. We had it in view for over five minutes and savored its lovely buff markings and floppy flight. This owl sighting was as wonderful as the rare birds we had seen and provided a perfect ending to the day.

In 2016 VENT’s youth birding camp program will turn 30! In advance of this historic event, we are thrilled to announce that Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO) has become an official co-sponsor of VENT youth birding camps.

For most of our 39-year history, Victor Emanuel Nature Tours has been a leading proponent of connecting young people to nature through birding and natural history study. From our first camp in 1986, Camp Chiricahua, we have conducted our camps with the conviction that making nature available to young people is an essential component to their leading successful and fulfilling lives—spiritually, emotionally, and professionally. Many kids who have come through our youth camp system have later chosen to pursue careers in science, conservation, teaching, and professional tour leading. Over the years, these camps have included the leadership of some of the most respected people in modern birding including Victor Emanuel, Pete Dunne, Kenn Kaufman, Michael O’Brien, and Roger Tory Peterson, in addition to a host of other natural history exemplars.

Camp Chiricahua 2015. Photo by Michael O’Brien.

In Black Swamp Bird Observatory we have an ideal partner, an organization committed to education, promoting conservation and economic development through birding, and connecting people with the joy of birding. In particular, its commitment to Ohio’s younger generation is demonstrated through the Ohio Young Birders Club (OYBC), a program developed by BSBO in 2006 for young people ages 12–18 in which birding and outdoor education are the vehicle to encourage, educate, and empower that state’s youth conservation leaders.

Ohio Young Birders Club with Greg Miller (The Big Year) at Magee Marsh during the Biggest Week in American Birding. Photo by Gerry Brevoort.

Through our new partnership,BSBO joins the American Birding Association (ABA) and Leica Sport Optics in support of VENT youth camps. The common denominator among all of our organizations is a shared understanding that nature matters, and through birding, today’s youth will emerge as tomorrow’s stewards of the environment.

We welcome the estimable Black Swamp Bird Observatory as a proud new partner of VENT youth birding camps, and thank the American Birding Association and Leica Sport Optics for their continued support.

In partnership with BSBO, ABA, and Leica Sport Optics, VENT will operate two youth birding camps in 2016 and 2017:

Halloween seems a good time to recall that nightjars, those mysterious nocturnal flutterers, have been rumored to engage in behavior far more treacherous than merely suckling at the udders of defenseless livestock.

In 1750, the Pomeranian ornithologist Jacob Theodor Klein listed as names for the European nightjar “witch,” “night harmer,” and something that seems to mean “child smotherer.”

Some of us may have our doubts, but the terrifying engraving that accompanies Klein’s account convinces me. Myself, I’m keeping the windows closed until Halloween is over.

Franco Andrea Bonelli—of warbler and eagle fame—had the great good luck and the singular misfortune to live in what one might call interesting times.

Portrait of Franco Bonelli by G. B. Biscarra.

Bonelli was born in the Italian Piedmont in 1784. When he was a boy of 14, Napoleon’s troops moved into northern Italy, occupying the Piedmont and driving the royal family into exile on Sardinia.

National Museum of Natural History, Paris. Photo by Roi Boshi.

The French occupation, which would last fifteen years, was a great setback for the burgeoning movement for Italian unity and independence, but it also presented new opportunities to young and ambitious Piedmontese—among them Bonelli, who, with Georges Cuvier’s sponsorship, was able to spend a year studying at the National Museum in Paris, from which he returned in 1811 to take up a position as professor of zoology in Turin.

Among the young professor’s tasks was seeing to it that the city’s museum become a resource for university instruction in natural history. In his tenure, Bonelli did far more: he made Turin the finest museum in Italy, the repository of collections that would be visited by nearly every famous natural historian of his day.

But there was trouble ahead. On Napoleon’s abdication in 1814, the Italian royal family returned from Sardinia. The deeply conservative views of the king came together with his resentment of the French to produce a decidedly radical restoration: as one skeptical court insider reported, the Italians had come back from exile with only one thing in mind, to return everything to the status quo of 1798.

Vittorio Emanuele I in 1801, artist unknown.

That meant, of course, destroying every single institution that had been created or promoted by the hated occupiers—including the ornithological collections Bonelli had amassed with the support of Paris. “All of these innovations are the work of Satan,” the king is rumored to have said, “we didn’t have museums in ’98 and we were none the worse for it. Why should we want to be more clever than our forebears?”

Birds to please a king. Photo by Torino Regional Museum of Natural Sciences.

Someone—presumably but not certainly Bonelli himself—reminded the king of the delight he had recently had in visiting the museum’s birds. Once his tantrum had subsided, the king agreed to make an exception for the birds: he liked the birds, and he hoped that the museum staff would continue to take good care of them.

The next regent, Charles Felix, was more indulgent. He gave Bonelli permission to construct a specially designed hall of zoology in the museum, which was completed in the spring of 1830. Unbeknownst to Bonelli, however, a university colleague had been scheming behind the scenes to have the new space instead given to him for anatomy demonstrations. When Bonelli learned of the betrayal, he suffered a stroke, and died six months later, at the age of 45.

But the rich artworks preserved in Ravenna, the capital of Theoderic’s realm, tell a different story.

Consecrated in the late fifth century, the city’s Archepiscopal Chapel is the oldest surviving Christian oratory anywhere. Its marble walls are paved with some of the finest and most famous mosaics in Italy, studded with 1500-year-old images of some 99 species of birds.

Cappella arcivescovile, Ravenna. Photo by Incola, Wikimedia Commons.

Some are purely whimsical, but many of the birds are identifiable as of the very same species that still abound today around the ancient churches and tombs.

Others recall the great numbers and variety of waterfowl, shorebirds, and raptors that winter around the nearby delta of the mighty Po River.

Smew. Photo by Dick Daniels, Wikimedia Commons.

From Venice to Ravenna, we retrace the steps of the Ostrogoths as they slowly absorbed much of the western Roman Empire. And we retrace the steps of the anonymous artists who, 1500 years ago, recognized that there was a lot to see outdoors in Italy, too.